Bitcoin spikes above $240 on Fed interest rate fears

Having previously worked at Property Week and Management Today, my areas of expertise are housing, entrepreneurs and leadership, as well as cars and the automotive industry. In 2015 I won the British Media Awards' Rising Star of the Year award.

Follow Emma

Emma Haslett

The currency has plummeted in value since November 2013, but is benefiting from recent jitters in the US and Europe (Source: Getty)

Bitcoin has spiked against the dollar, broaching the $240 mark for the first time this month.

The cryptocurrency reversed sharp falls from earlier this month to jump as high as $241.09 today, as investors awaited a policy update from the US Federal Reserve which is expected to hint an interest rate hike will be held off until September, and negotiations between Greece and its lenders became more terse.

Bitcoin isn't the only thing benefiting from falling investor confidence. The price of gold jumped as high as $1,187.74 this morning, suggesting investor nervousness around traditional currencies.

Windsor Holden, head of forecasting and consultancy at Juniper Research, pointed out that Bitcoin tends to react strongly to changes in investor sentiment.

"It has experienced a large number of spikes over the past 18 months," he said. "We've seen a lot of sharp corrections, normally when exchanges have collapsed.

"It tends to be impacted more than other currencies - so the fact we've seen this sudden increase is more to do with the nature of the currency itself."